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The Price of Elizabeth Warren's "Cherokee" Identity Politics

Elizabeth Warren, who clearly wants to run for president, delivered a professionally written speech at the National Congress of American Indians.. The speech ties together two cynical legs that drive the left.

1. Anti-Trumpism

Warren has figured out that her bizarre claim to be Cherokee becomes more politically acceptable if she wraps it in attacks on President Trump's use of Pocahontas. It doesn't actually, but the left's left brain works that way. If Hitler came back, he would immediately become more acceptable if he were anti-Trump. And if you doubt that, take another look at the media's glowing accounts of a North Korean dictator's sister glaring at Vice President Pence. There is no sin too terrible that hating Trump can't smooth over.

2. The political blackmail of identity politics

Conservatives missed a crucial element in some of the criticism from American Indian activists of Warren. Their criticism had less to do with Warren adopting a fake identity she had no right to than failing to care about Indian issues.

And that's what she was here to do.

Identity remains very negotiable on the left. It's not quite at the transracial frontier yet, but it's quite willing to declare that Ben Carson isn't black, but that Shaun King is. If you can represent a political agenda, identity becomes negotiable. At this rate, Warren will be able to claim to be Cherokee with the support of American Indian activists.

That's the final act of the joke which always ends with a naked emperor's clothes becoming the talk of the left.